Intolerance
by konnerkris
Summary: AU. a story of life in the 21st century for a homosexual if buggery was still illegal protrude using the twilight characters. may guest star Draco Malfoy and or Dick Greyson/Nightwing. warning may contain homosexual themes and British English (or as I like to call it English) words such as buggery.


Prologue

It was a Sunday, one of those days that you never get anything done. A seemingly unimportant day. I'd slept in until eleven and had just finished a bowl of coco pops, when a quiet knocking came from to door. 'That's odd' I thought to myself no one I knew would be up this early.

I quickly moved to the door of my new flat and opened it a fraction, leaving it on the chain, so that only a slither of the outside world was visible.

'Who is it?' I asked, looking through the crack in the door. An elderly man stood on the other side leaning on a cane. He was wearing a tatty old blazer with a comfy shirt underneath and slightly too tight jeans for a man of his age, a fashion perhaps more suited to the beginning of the century. He also held a plastic carrier bag with something large and rectangular crammed into it.

A deep but soft voice came back through the door, "Hello, I live next door. I was hoping you could help me with my computer."

It's at this point I should mention that I'm a bit of a computer geek, not that I tell anyone that, although I found it a bit odd that he would choose my door out of all the others on this floor to come to with a computer problem.

The man looked harmless enough so I let the door open a little more, 'what's wrong with it?" I asked.

"I'm not sure." He replied "but I thought a young person like yourself might have better luck with it than I would." He smiled at me, he had a very nice smile, especially for someone his age.

I unchained the door and let it swing open "Ok, I'll take a look at it. Come in."

The elderly man hobbled in through the doorway "Thank you Miss Cullen."

'That's odd I never told him my name' I speculated, 'perhaps I shouldn't have let him in. he was a lot taller than me, he may be a lot older but I think he could still overpower me. Had I let a dangerous man into my flat?'

"Do you mind if I sit?" He said in his gentle voice drawing my attention back to him "these old legs don't do much good for me anymore."

"No of course not, please sit." I said. 'Don't be so paranoid, he's just a harmless old man'. "And please call me Bella."

"Thank you Bella." He said before sitting down on the nearby sofa and pulling the plastic bag onto his lap. He then proceeded to peel the plastic bag off of an ancient looking peace of tech.

"What's that?" I asked a little too interested.

"It's a laptop," the man replied "The last one I ever bought. It must be about thirty years old now."

"That's fantastic," I said, "May I?" I asked holding my hands ready to receive the chunky device. I sat down next to the elderly man, opened it up and pressed the power button in the top left corner. Nothing happened, as I expected. "You don't happen to have the charger do you?" I asked.

"No I'm afraid not."

"Shame. Well I'm afraid there's not much I can do to fix it then."

"Ah." The man's face sunk into a frown. "I just wanted to such through the files, see if couldn't find some of the pictures from the good old days. Actually, that reminds me." The man reached into his pocket and pulled out an envelope. It had the electric company's logo printed on it. "The postman must have put this in my letter box by mistake, it's addressed to you."

"Thank you" I said taking the letter from his out stretched hand. 'That must've been how he knew my name.'

"You know, that's the reason I fished out this old thing," he said pointing to the laptop I had placed onto the coffee table in front of us. "A man who was once a very good friend of mine was called Cullen. Anyway I must be getting back now, it was nice to meet you Bella."

"Why don't you leave that with me?" I said as he reached for the old PC, I'll see if I can't download those pictures off the hard drive for you."

I helped him off the sofa and across the room to the front door.

"What's your name by the way?" I asked before he left.

"I'm so sorry for not introducing myself earlier, I'm Emmett, Emmett McCarthy."

It didn't take me long to open up the laptop and download all the information from the hard drive onto my computer, though it did take me a little while to convert them from there Microsoft windows format into a format more up to date. So about a week later I crossed the hall and knocked on Emmett's door.

"Hello Mr McCarthy."

"Oh, hello Bella."

"I managed to get those files off of your laptop," I produced the USB 12.0.

"Ah thanks, that's very kind of you Bella, but I don't have any devices that can take a…whatever that is stick."

"Why don't you pop over to mine, we can look at the pictures on my computer, I may even be able to print a few out if you would like."

"That would be much appreciated, let me just find my keys." Emmett rummaged through the clutter on the old table near to the door until he found the ring of keys.

We made our way over to my flat and I sat him down on the sofa before plugging the USB into my computer and projecting the screen's image onto the living room wall in front of the sofa.

A page with many files came up.

"Could you go to the 'don't delete' file." Emmett asked. I spoke the command allowed and the computer opened the file. There were only four pictures in it. I opened the first one, named the 'coven of cool', it was a group of five people including Emmett."

"Who are they?" I couldn't help but ask.

"Those are my four oldest, best friends from university. Alice, the ebony haired girl and Jasper the boy next to her, they ended up as a couple in the end, they still send me a Christmas card every year. The blonde girl, Rosalie, we were best friends all through Uni and we were close for a long time after, but when she married we drifted further and further apart.

"And the bronze haired boy," I asked after a moment of silence

"He was my first and only true love, Edward Cullen."


End file.
